


Phantom Shadows

by Crispyteabiscuits



Series: Breddy Fanfic - The Four Seasons [2]
Category: Breddy, Twosetviolin
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Autumn, Death, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, Feelings, Flashbacks, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Graveyarad, Grief, Heavy Drinking, Hidden Feelings, Hurt, Inspired by song, Les Miserables - Freeform, Loss, M/M, Mostly Platonic, Recovery, Shadows - Freeform, The Grief Gets Better, Trigger Warning (Depression is Implied), it's been a year, no drugs, requited feelings, sorry haha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:09:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29755251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crispyteabiscuits/pseuds/Crispyteabiscuits
Summary: It's been months, or years- perhaps even more, but Eddy Chen could not remember a time when he felt alive.The shadows plague him still, haunting every step, every ragged breath he takes.Closure is as distant as the northern stars, silhouette lurks within his apartment. Emotions are heightening to an unforeseen peak, Eddy drowns himself in the comfort only intoxication can bring him.Yet when he closes his eyes, the wisps of sweet melodies pulling from familiar strings echo in his head.Perhaps it was never about being free from it all.
Relationships: Eddy Chen & Brett Yang, Eddy Chen/Brett Yang
Series: Breddy Fanfic - The Four Seasons [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675375
Kudos: 3





	Phantom Shadows

**_Montenegro Bar in San Francisco_ **

“Refill ?”

Eddy was jolted out of his daze, his fingers still rimming the beer mug. Golden liquid splashed and poured in front of him, like an ominous waterfall of luxury. Luxury, he decided, that he did not own. 

Slithering his fingers under the handle, Eddy habitually knocked another pint onto his lips. He let the residual streams run down his neck, the lukewarm liquid soaking his collar.

“Whoa there Eddy, lighten it up, yeah? The night is young.” 

“So very young indeed. I need another pint.” 

“Another? Eddy this is the third month—“ The bartender seemed taken aback. 

Eddy snorted, tapping his nails against the bar table, sharp and irately. 

“Consecutive, yes, I’ve got enough to pay for it.” 

“That's not what I meant.“ 

Silence followed. The damning silence. Yet the man tended to his empty mug as always, he never denied, and he never questioned. But the unsounded air had hung between them for months, a tension made to snap. 

He paid no mind to the bartender that swung occasional glances at him as if he were a guardian. But not once did he prevent Eddy’s shaking hands from throwing back another mug of drink. The liquid sizzled and seethed in his throat, and somewhat eased the stirring in his heart. 

The bustling noises were soon drowned out by the pounding of intoxication, Eddy felt like he was diving in the oceans, and soaring in the sky like a bird. Yet the feeling of the floor beneath his boot caged him, he wouldn’t be gliding any time soon. 

In all the bars of this world, no matter where it is situated, there would always be a man, no shaggy figure, no matted clothing, only hair run too many times through, and heavy bagged eyes that had seen too much. While people celebrated and cheered for a fine life shared, they would huddle in the dark corners and order all the stocks of the pint. 

“Toast to your engagement, Ray!” 

The man clapped their backs. 

“Toast to all you brilliant folks!” 

“-Right back at ya’!” 

Tonight, it was no different. Not even harlots would approach them with fluttering lashes and unblemished faces because they weren’t an audience of the performance, they always have someone dancing on the stage for them eternally. With each twirl, they fall into more indulgence, and they tumble deeper and deeper until darkness gives in. 

The soft drowsiness of the head and the pale strands under the cranky lights of the bar lulled Eddy with a gentleness he hadn’t experienced in a while. 

He continued to bathe his tongue in the savoury bitterness, and bite his lips when the heat stirring in his head and cheeks grew lacking. Sometimes, it tastes like grief, sometimes like pain, sometimes like regret, but it always dulled the pounding in his chest. 

Slowly, the voices shut down around him, and so did the lights. 

“Mate, you’ve had enough to drink,” the mug was wrung out of his palms without force, and he was shovelled into cold, unforgiving seats, and a voice uttered a familiar address. 

The seat began to swivel in sharp corners, Eddy was dreaming too much of strange harmonies to give into the retching feeling in his stomach. 

It was a dark place in the car interior. Every inch of the corners loomed and peaked with shadows, dancing in the moonlight and in memory. The car sped down the road, and it only got colder and colder, and the trees grew thinner and thinner. 

Soon it stopped at a grey residential building just like any other in Brisbane, Australia. 

Yanking the door open in his intoxicated state, he staggered against the handle, his feet sagging underneath him. The surroundings faded away as the darkness ate away at his vision. Bit by bit, piece by piece, Eddy could not scream or writhe, only gave in to the dark. 

  
  


—

  
  


“ _ No! _ ” 

Eddy was awoken by a scream so haunting and terrible it could’ve been a phantom. 

Yet he found himself slumped over a softly cushioned bedding, in his home with— _ him, _ in Brisbane. Adelaide Street 3000, for it was a lengthy street. He had woken from too many hungover evenings to remember such details. Eddy was stuck in a cycle, where the same aching ghosts and memories replayed and replayed, tearing pieces and pieces of his sanity and sorrow until his heart was no more.

He scanned his surroundings and found himself. Alone, in the apartment. The more Eddy looked on, the more the pale white walls seemed to knit themselves together, the dimly lit room cast shadows upon the pasty white surface. 

Slapping a hand against his chest, Eddy could feel the storm within his veins, and his head began to spin. If it were because of dehydration, it was about to make his vertigo worse. He ached everywhere, his throat, his eyes, his head—  _ his heart _ . 

_ “So I don’t need rehab... Right? ” Eddy stared at his report, his fingers fiddling with the corner of the paper. He couldn’t envision how to spend months on end staring at a sole window— or none at all, as entertainment. It wasn’t like he was ready to welcome a stranger into his embrace.  _

_ “You don’t…” The doctor paused briefly, his face growing stiff as metal, sincerity adorned his fierce eyes, “but it would be better on you, someone could take care of you until you reestablish social connections—“  _

_ “I—I’m not ready,” Eddy quickly dismissed it. He chanted in his heart so loudly he was determined the doctor had heard him.  _

_ Because the doctor only gave him a wary sideway glance, “if you’re sure, Mr Chen. It doesn’t mean you’re sick, to check into hospitality. It means you’ve suffered a lot emotionally, and now you can rest, and allow your system to reset....” _

_ Eddy stared at his paper. All the complicated strings of nonsense scribbled neatly in paragraphs, his unfortunate diagnosis and symptoms. Headaches… Nausea… Signs of PTSD…  _

_ Panic strummed his heartbeat again, and he could feel the paper begin to wrap around his vision and wound his breathing tighter and tighter— until.  _

_ “—Mr Chen,” an astute and calm voice cleared his inner stammerings. The doctor stared at him, Eddy stared back. His chest was still heaving, gasps of breaths leaving him. He had just hyperventilated in front of his medical supervisor, it was hardly a reassuring event. Now Eddy would be stuck forever in the hospital.  _

_ The doctor sighed like he drew his breath from the depths of his heart, the metal strings disposing of themselves, a gentle expression sewn onto his face. He was like a painting, a silk cloth waiting to be adorned with decoration. This was all play pretend, Eddy realised. Maybe  _ **_he,_ ** _ too, manipulated him like a doll to become just the obedient slave to emotions that he was now.  _

_ When had he become so weak? _

_ “Deep breaths.” The authoritative tone filled his head.  _

He took in large gasps of air, wheezing as coldness seeped into his insides. Eddy filled his cavity like downing a pint, as though if he breathed enough, he would be whole again. 

And then he would drink his feelings away when that didn’t work. 

A fiddle of darkness, how it would play him beautifully, he would arch his back when told to, crane his neck, cower in its presence. It was an endless cycle, thrown back and forth in remembering and not remembering. When would his bones snap and his back tear into splinters? 

Eddy began fisting at his chest. His heart rate plummeted and rose erratically like a fish flapping its fins against the sand to struggle back into the water. Instinctively, he reached like a bedridden man would reach for his pills for relief, and pulled out a black case.

Eddy clasped open the case and gripped the fine wood of his instrument. His trembling fingers flighted against the varnish, so delicately as if he were afraid it’d shatter before his very eyes. 

Music… How long had he fed off the memories of it? Nothing would taste better than reality. Eddy closed his eyes, the weight falling onto his left shoulder, and he closed the world around him. Then he would fall, like a man so as every other in a trance, let the melodies seep into his skin like syrup, and his blood would eat it up generously. 

Slowly, he wound his bow, like a practised archer, and the notes so familiar they tumbled, so accustomed that his fingers danced like a drunken fool, and his heart ached with the weight. The pain only grew, and the space in his heart only expanded, but he carried on, like any other young man who didn’t know the workings of the world. 

Eddy thought he was still hungover, his arms were straining so he must’ve hit another string. What messy string crossings, to have derived another voice in his piece… Another voice. 

It clambered up to his spine and jabbed through his bones, it tickled like feathers and wretched his blinds open. In the midst of the shadows, the phantoms of his memories, he could not see his silhouette on the walls. 

But a man faced him, pulling his strings, chords placed strategically as if playing chess, it plucked Eddy’s heart. A man not very short, but not as tall, hair quite messy and like a platter. There was an unmistakable visage of a bump of the glasses, and tousled curls bouncing with the passages. 

Eddy’s heart clambered from his chest, his arms left him. Ears ringing hot with the melodies ghosting harmonics with his bow. 

It didn’t matter if he wasn’t real, it didn’t matter if it was all a dream. He would chase the crescendos and pull the memories as far as they would sing. Eddy tried so hard to imprint the visage in his mind, so he would never forget, never lose the shape of the head from his mind, the way  _ his  _ shoulder was slightly slumped and  _ his  _ arm so skilled and astute. 

Sunlight dominated the room bit by bit, and for a moment, the music began to soften and brighten altogether. Shadows grew haze from his vision, Eddy swore to the music he could hear the whispers and murmurings of the morning breeze that began to drift through the tall, thin window.

Blinking the rain through his lashes, Eddy could no longer hear nor see the music entwining his own. Eddy collapsed into the wall, he was in hysterics, his eyes matted with redness, as he searched for every reminiscent droplet.

_ What could have been? What could not have been?  _

Eddy mulled over the past like old wine, as he mulled over the silence of his thoughts. And he poured over the ache in his heart as he poured over his music.

“Just— let me  _ go!”  _ Eddy slammed his elbows onto the tables, fingers weaving through his hair, tugging onto them like a lifeline. 

“You just love stringing me along don’t you? You adored it, like you adored any filth that fell before your feet, why could it never be me… I’m better than any of them, I know that, and so do you! ” He shouted so hard his throat ground at its screws, the reverberations of his words ringed in his ears and in his head. As if he was trapped in an endless cycle, a barren cavern where there was no exit, where he was forced to face the darkest of his thoughts. 

Then Eddy sobbed and wailed, flailing like broken cardboard until he could chase away the phantoms enough that his eyelids sagged and gave. 

Then the next morning, the sun rose and paused in its harmony, just as any other day. Eddy got up from his slumped position, the ache in his back accompanying him as he dressed and cleansed himself. 

He left the threshold, and when he did, he turned and glanced behind his shoulder. The arch of the ceiling, the dangling forger of a chandelier, the tattered couch. 

Walls shone with light, and he slipped away like darkness. 

_ Click. _

  
  





  
  


“Good Morning, Mr Chen!” 

“To you as well, and Eddy’s fine.” 

“We’re very pleased to have you join us, Eddy, you’d be a brilliant addition to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra!” 

Eddy hummed at that, the carpet beneath his polished shoe was soft and in a welcoming red.

“We hope you don’t mind being offered second-chair. Well… Of course, we know you’ve had an abundance of experience playing solo. However, our Soloist will be retiring next month, therefore you’d make a fine successor.” The advisor stammered along at his pace. 

“I don't mind. It  _ has  _ been a while since I’ve left the orchestral scene.” 

“W-Well that is perfect, Mr Chen—“ the advisor looked rather troubled, tugging at the ends of his collared shirt nervously, it ticked on Eddy’s tense shoulders.

“Eddy is fine, it  _ really _ is.” 

“O-Of course! Perfect, this way then!” 

Eddy tried not to look at the walls, he really did. Coming back to Sydney Symphony Orchestra had his nerves on end. Something like confronting his nightmares. 

Sitting in his position as second-chair, the first rehearsal came quicker than sleep itself these days. No longer was he aware of the steaming hot stares of the rookies and the experienced, but he was sure he stuck out like a sore finger. 

It was never just a short thirty minutes of fame. He was still recognised occasionally, but significantly less than those months ago. Instead, he mostly got shy avoiding stares and hushed murmurings. They’d think he was oblivious, yet Eddy knew just what they went on about.

_ Do you think he misses him?  _

_ Maybe they dated for a while.  _

_ I wonder if he cares, God knows he left without a word.  _

Eddy kept to himself as a secret and hoarded his musicality in his music. He played with restraint, as he could not dominate the concertmaster. 

His concertmaster seldom spoke to him, only when they discussed leading did Eddy unveil his sealed face, and softened his clenched muscles. He was sure he looked like someone else, but he couldn’t bring himself to shine like a sunflower. 

“How are you?”

Eddy was startled by the hum of the voice beside him that he jolted his pen from his hand. It clattered onto the floor with a painful thud. The weathered face stared right at him. 

“Oh— Just fine, you?” He stammered about his lack of conversing material. 

“I’m retiring next month.” The concertmaster was at least forty years of senior to Eddy. But still, Eddy could not contain the urge that spiked at him like an off-tune note. 

“Retiring?” He echoed instead.

“You’ve heard of it surely, bustling around in the young ‘uns. It’s difficult for anyone to give up their career at a ripe age.” 

“Well, everybody has burdens.” The words shot out before Eddy could clamp his mouth shut.

The aged violinist stared at him longer, as if searching for something hidden there on his face. Eddy couldn’t turn or stare, so he simply gazed at the age that marred the violinist’s face. 

“Sorry.” His cheeks burned. 

“Oh, please don’t apologise, the word goes around.” 

“No, no. That’s not why I’m here.” Eddy’s features blossomed with shame.

Then the unexpected happened. Eddy wasn’t sure what he had in mind, but it was definitely not the concertmaster laughing with abandon, his greying head shaking wildly. 

“Then why are you here, what is it you’re looking for?” 

A tap of metal striking its own awoke the orchestra, the soft hushes faded into silence. Eddy positioned himself, at the corner of his eyes he could feel the sting of a stare. 

The violinist’s gaze left him, and he led the melody with the same accuracy of a skilled archer. 

  
  





  
  


Eddy was first to step out of the suffocating crowd, and into the crisp autumn air of Brisbane. The buzzing noises of a thriving town reached his ears, and he gained the comfort of routine. 

Reviving his car with a switch, he hoisted his violin case into his seat. And as if handling a glass, he placed an extra bag beside him.

The engine roved, and Eddy sped away up north. 

The flashing colours of the city faded into the pleasantry of the countryside, like time itself went with it. 

As the distance between him and Brisbane drew closer, he felt his palms perspire, continuously he drew his hand over his jeans.

How long has it been? 5 years? 

The day he left Brisbane was still as fresh as a new wound. Whenever he was asked of it, to reminisce his offer from the New York Institute, Eddy had smiled and beckoned but he always said that time had run over the memories like an old road. There was simply no remembering or forgetting. 

Nine hours and forty-six minutes, Eddy parked his jeep against a waning tree below the gates of the Brookfield Cemetery. Already, the morning air that was fresh as rain filled his senses, he knew he had made an agreeable choice. 

Rural was the scenery, a peaceful gateway to the dead and the living. He strolled along with the abbey of lineages of pearl white stones, some black; some old, some  _ new _ . The chirps of nature rang around him as his heart clenched the familiar etchings. 

_ Rest in Peace, Brett Yang. _

He thought he could do this, Eddy thought he could place the flowers onto the smooth brick, brush away the fallen golden leaves on his friend’s resting place and leave just as easily as a bird flapping its wings and flying. 

There were so many words Eddy wanted to say, so many unspoken pains and misery he wanted to share. He wanted to tell him about his job in the orchestra, his moving to Sydney. How he became acquainted to intoxicated nights and aching mornings, how he made frequent trips for his psychosis, and how much he had grown to fear the night. Because once  _ he _ was everything he had, and now he had nothing. It was like holding a brilliant red leaf in a palm, only for it to be swept away by a stealing breeze. Whether they were grown to fall apart, perhaps only fate knew the answer. 

When Eddy had stopped for coffee one day as he did have to rouse in the morning, Hillary, the ever so down-to-earth world-class soloist had asked Eddy to ride along the ocean to Brisbane with her. She had just returned then from a world tour, the twinkle of slight ageing in her eyes, but she looked as youthful as the first snow that billowed around them. And she hung onto her husband with sincerity in her eyes. 

But Eddy declined her smiles, and she nodded, though grim hung like shadows in her twinkling eyes.

“As long as it takes, promise me you’ll come back, Eddy.” 

In the midst of Eddy’s drinking, the ever-talented Ray has asked him to revisit the olden times, and take a trip up to Brisbane, where autumn would be its finest, and winter would come so fast their breaths would be stolen by its thievery. The garnish of his Stradivarius glimmered like stars under the dimmed stage light, that was the last Eddy had seen of him. 

“As long as it takes, call me when you come back to Brisbane, Eddy.” Ray told him, his eyes downcast as well. 

Those were his closest friends second to Brett, he would bask in the faraway laughter and wonder if he could ever be that happy again. Battered was his strength to smile and wave like the last five years didn’t happen. How could he pretend? When the shadowed corners ringed with phantoms of the past and lingered with abandoned music. 

Staring down at the name on the stone, Eddy felt cold in his chest to imagine Hillary’s features, or a dedication to Ray, engraved on those dark and grey stones. 

But they had cared when Eddy flooded himself in alcoholic indulgence. They had grieved with  _ his  _ family when Eddy showed his face only once or twice a month when his mom grew to find him insolent. 

Eddy was reluctant to look upon the still face on the stone, where he would never see his friend morph into colours and his face would never twitch into a smile. Those nights they shared when the two of them could bare their hearts and let their eyes wander. Eddy wasn’t brave enough, and he didn’t deserve  _ his _ smile. Eddy knew what his friend was like, and Eddy still chose to remain proud. 

The words were stuck in his throat and Eddy felt the icy sweat against his shoulder. Eddy knelt down on one knee and brushed the greying leaves off of his friend’s grave. 

Eddy took care of washing the stone as if he were tending to a child, brushing a tattered cloth over the sheen of dust. He made sure the surface was spotless before he placed the batch of flowers onto his friend’s stone. 

_ “Hydrangeas, amaranthus, sedum.  _ I hope you like them—“ 

Eddy sucked a chilling breath through his teeth. 

Then Eddy pulled out a rose from his bag, with trembling fingers he smoothed over the petals. An inauspicious yellow, blushing red in its tips, the flower blossomed like a fawning beauty. 

The colours spilt over the grey stone. 

He stood and stared. 

Mustering enough courage, Eddy lifted his head. Had his memory gone blind? Had he forgotten his friend’s full cheeks and his soulful eyes? 

The first breeze of autumn brought its golden petals through the falling day, light seeped into the edges of the hills and sea. 

The melody of the crunching of the leaves bled away from the graveyard, a leaf blushing with fresh autumn lands on Eddy’s shoulder. 

It glowered at him with the reminisce of summer and winter. Eddy brushed it from his checkered shirt, and let it drift, buried into the grass. 

_ “Goodbye.”  _

The first glow of the twilight sparked as a car engine powered away under the moonlight. Long shadows waned and waxed over the trees, soothing the land into a sweet slumber. 

There it was, a man walking in the woods, the sky’s his limit. And there was a man beneath the soil, the ground his eternal blanket. 

**Author's Note:**

> Helloo everyone,
> 
> I'm grateful for the reads and kudos'es the previous works have received, it means a lot that my work is read. Feel free to comment with any feedback at all, I'd love to hear from my readers.
> 
> A continuation of what could have been, a sequel, if you will.
> 
> I have written this in the previous year, and have never been in the mindset to publish this piece of work- now that it has almost been a year, it almost feels almost like unburdening all that I've written and planned. 
> 
> To be frank, I have not been satisfied with this work, and I doubt I ever will. But I think this work does justice to the ending, to give closure to Eddy. 
> 
> It's a purely fictitious work. This series is not only my first, but it also is the most committed I've ever been to a series.
> 
> As a result of this series, I have grown to develop other works, though I'm not sure if it's appropriate to upload in the same account since it's in a different fandom. 
> 
> Once again, thank you for reading the story and this short note. Have a nice day!
> 
> Love,  
> Tea ♥️


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